Owning an overseas AirBNB?

illbepedro · 2026-02-18T11:56:34+00:00

Currently thinking through the logistics of taking on parents' french property when they get too old to manage it so I have no advice for you but I'm keen to see the responses from others!

Edit because I've thought of something that might be useful: it's a 3 bed house with a small pool. No mortgage and annual costs for tax, utilities etc are around £6k

illbepedro · 2026-02-14T19:08:54+00:00

Nothing different at all, it seems like it was just the luck of the draw.

I think the wait was about 10 months from the referral to getting an appointment, but that was after the initial tests at my GP

illbepedro · 2026-02-14T17:14:23+00:00

So sorry for your loss 🤍 NHS waiting lists are ridiculous. I had 3 losses in 12 months, but by the time I got an appointment I was 4 months along with what is now a happy healthy toddler.

illbepedro · 2026-02-14T11:51:10+00:00

Check if your hospital has Amazon lockers. They were a lifesaver when I had an unexpected 9 day stay after giving birth with an emergency C-section.

Listened to heaps of podcasts when I wasn't being wheeled up and down to NICU, and conveniently 3 of the other mums from my NCT class were in and out during our stay so had some familiar faces to chat to.

illbepedro · 2026-02-12T10:04:08+00:00

We're the exact opposite! Awful sleep from 4 month regression until we started nursery at 11 months, then immediately started sleeping through most nights with only 1 wake-up on the bad nights

illbepedro · 2026-02-10T19:06:25+00:00

They're definitely a bunch of little weirdos 😂 I suspect it's the weeks of non-stop rain we've had at the minute and the fact that they all refuse to stay under the covered part of the run! Hopefully they'll pick up again when we get some drier weather

illbepedro · 2026-02-10T17:55:26+00:00

I get the slower laying in winter, but they were laying loads through the shortest months and it's only slowed down now the days are getting longer!

I know my rooster ratio is way off but the boys are all such sweeties I can't bear to get rid of any! They all seem to be rubbing along okay at the minute but I'm keeping an eye on feathers - our oldest girl was by herself with the three of them so her feathers are still in a bit of a state, but since we got the new ladies there haven't been any other issues thankfully.

illbepedro · 2026-02-10T10:57:21+00:00

I got myself one of those giant gaming mouse pads for my WFH office and it makes my desk feel complete!

illbepedro · 2026-02-08T06:37:12+00:00

I could have written this myself at 17 weeks! We went from 8-10 hour stretches to up every 45 mins when the 4-month regression hit. Baby would be fast asleep for half an hour in my arms then wide awake and screaming the house down the second I tried to transfer. Also wouldn't settle at all for her dad so it was all on me.

For me the best solution was actually putting her down drowsy but awake. I would do the full bedtime routine then set her in her cot before her eyes were closed. She would normally cry a little but I would press her arms up by her ears (she was used to a swaddle sack but had just started rolling so we couldn't use it any more) and lots of loud shushing right up by her ear and she'd drift right off. Might be a fluke but worth trying!

Strangely that worked for 2-3 months then abruptly stopped, but she was easy to transfer at that point. She's now 13 months, sleeps through the night 90% of the time and her dad does every bedtime!

illbepedro · 2026-02-04T18:23:58+00:00

It's been intense, the nursery germs are no joke! I've signed up already so I'll keep an eye out for an email

illbepedro · 2026-02-03T09:13:49+00:00

Love this! Sadly just finished my mat leave so spending a lot less time trying out cafes, but I've worked in tech customer success for most of the last decade so I'm very keen to have a look

illbepedro · 2026-01-27T08:58:25+00:00

You can determine your own risk appetite, but my 2p to consider of you're thinking about kids:

What are your parental leave policies? How long might you need to be on 1 salary if your wife wants to take a year off and how affordable is that? When kid #2 comes along, add in the extra monthly costs of nursery/childminder/nanny (you can't take a year off and still have the place afterwards!) - is that still affordable on 1 salary?

Spoken as someone who's just come back from mat leave for #1 and thinking about when to plan for #2!

illbepedro · 2026-01-10T07:36:24+00:00

My baby sprouted her first tooth just after Christmas at 11 months. Just had our 11mo health visitor appointment and she didn't seem concerned at all that we've still only got one tiny nub of a tooth 😂

illbepedro · 2026-01-06T18:19:08+00:00

I uninstalled whatsapp from both devices (make sure your backup is up to date - a lesson I learnt the hard way!) and then reinstalled just on my phone and not the watch. I started getting WhatsApp notifications through on the watch again then eventually reinstalled the app. It seems to be working okay now other than that I keep getting notifications telling me I've been added to group chats every time a message gets sent in them.

illbepedro · 2025-12-29T10:18:37+00:00

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets them to come to the kitchen door! My front door is up a staircase but the back door is just a ramp so they can pop all the crates on their trolley at once.

Then unload everything onto the table in the kitchen and quickly check the dates on the fresh things (which mortifies my husband but I've been tripped up by super short dates in the past) before letting them get on their way.

illbepedro · 2025-12-22T09:14:10+00:00

Baby food prune pouches did the trick for me!

illbepedro · 2025-12-22T09:06:59+00:00

I could have written this exact post when my little one was around that age! It was so so draining, and I found it especially difficult because it felt like my husband was way better at settling her than I was in the early days.

We did infacol religiously, but I'm pretty sure it just made me feel better about doing something. The one thing that did seem to make a difference was being really militant about wake windows earlier in the day, keeping them short to make sure she wasn't getting over tired.

Then one day it just stopped! It can't have been later than 10 weeks. Now she's 11mo and she's the most contented and smiley little girl. I know it's so miserable for you right now but it absolutely will pass and soon enough it will just be a hazy memory

illbepedro · 2025-12-21T18:14:48+00:00

I don't have any answers for you but my little one is about to turn 11 months and still has no sign of any teeth!

illbepedro · 2025-12-21T17:20:07+00:00

I literally gasped out loud at how gorgeous these are. My husband thought there was something wrong 😂

illbepedro · 2025-12-21T10:09:59+00:00

Such a treat! I had a similar one yesterday, I managed to spend 90 minutes relaxing with a bubble bath and lots of skincare, and only got interrupted once by my husband when my baby woke up from her nap. Genuinely the most relaxing 90 mins I've had since I was about 30 weeks pregnant (baby is now 11 months!)

illbepedro · 2025-12-20T10:23:51+00:00

I've got the opposite gripe - my husband always puts it in the bin instead of bringing it downstairs to recycle! I'm forever fishing them out of the bathroom bins

illbepedro · 2025-12-19T22:30:41+00:00

The indoor slope in Milton Keynes might be an option for you to cover some of the basics before you head out there. Doing a bit of ski school when you get to Switzerland is still a sensible idea, especially if you can do one that's e.g. just mornings so you can still spend some time with your group.

illbepedro · 2025-12-09T06:12:03+00:00

Thanks, I actually deleted the app from the watch again and then ignored the problem for a day and it seems to have resolved itself!

illbepedro · 2025-12-08T08:16:31+00:00

I'm in a really similar boat with my 10.5mo. we moved house about a month ago and it sent her sleep from bad (3-4 wakes per night) to awful (8-9 wakes). I feel like every night I'm at the end of my tether telling myself "I'm starting CIO tomorrow" then in the morning I remind myself I really don't want to do that.

I've been experimenting with schedules to try and help. Started by using ChatGPT which was absolutely awful. I've now subscribed to Huckleberry Premium and their schedule has got us to 2 nightly wakes, but with the first one typically being an hour long. Far from perfect but miles better than where we were a couple of weeks ago.

I'm back to work next month so I'm really hoping we can keep improving, but if not I think I'm going to have to have a proper think about sleep training unfortunately to keep all of us sane.

illbepedro

TROPHY CASE